


The Circle Game

by DianaSolaris



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: (guess who), (two in particular), (well not NOBODY but a lot of the significant deaths dont happen), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Fix-It, Growing Old Together, Older Characters, mute character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 18:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17027733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DianaSolaris/pseuds/DianaSolaris
Summary: Padme Amidala survives, and so does Obi-Wan, because they're harder to kill than that. But the years have their own toll, and they go by faster than either of them plan.The song Circle Game is by Joni Mitchell. (Keep tissues handy if you listen to it.)





	The Circle Game

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jeffgoldblumvevo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeffgoldblumvevo/gifts).



> I hope you like this! It's my first real crack at Star Wars fic but I had a blast and I really love these two together.
> 
> The song is by Joni Mitchell and definitely worth a listen.

_ Yesterday a child came out to wonder _

_ Caught a dragonfly inside a jar  _

_ Fearful when the sky was full of thunder  _

_ And tearful at the falling of a star _

 

\---       

 

Sometimes, there wasn’t anything to say. They sat in the room together, the two babies asleep at the foot of her bed, the soft bandages around her neck the same stark white as the rest of the room but still somehow sticking out like a sore thumb.

There wasn’t a damn thing he could say that would help. But still Obi-Wan found himself searching for words that would make it better. He’d known, of course. He’d watched them get closer, tried to tell himself to say something, do something. He’d told himself it’d be fine.

And now here they were.

“Have you named them?” he asked finally.

Padmé’s hands lifted to her neck for a moment and then started shaping signs – carefully, uncertainly. It’d only been a few weeks, and the nurses were still making noises about how she _might_ get her voice back, it was too soon to tell, but it was just another thing they wouldn’t talk about.

L-E-I-A.

L-U-K-E.

“Good names. Kind of wish you’d named the boy after me,” he joked, and for the first time in weeks, he caught a hint of that sarcastic glower in her eyes. He’d missed that.

A second later, her half-hearted punch hit him in the arm. He rubbed his arm and gave her a rueful look even though it hadn’t hurt. “I thought you _liked_ me.”

<I do. But I’m not saddling another poor man with the name Obi-Wan.>

“Ow. I’m hurt, really.”

Padmé exhaled, hands dropping into her lap. She was staring at her children with dry eyes but heavy shoulders.

“…We can keep them safe. I promise.”

Padmé smiled faintly. For a moment, Obi-Wan could almost hear the thoughts running through her head. He hadn’t known her for long without getting used to some of the loops she got herself stuck in. She should have known better. She should have seen it coming. She should have been smarter, gotten herself out of this mess before two tiny lives got trapped in it with her.

“It’s not your fault.”

Padmé glowered at him again. He’d try saying it again, maybe when she was more ready to hear it.

<They can’t stay with me,> she signed, and the first words were signed with finality, but by the time she got to the last word, her fingers were shaking, and the tears had started to roll down her cheeks even though she was trying to hold them back.

Obi-Wan got up, crossing the space between them (three steps, he kept remembering that even though it was of zero significance, exactly three steps between him and her) and closed his arms around her. She buried her face in his arm, and he could feel her forcing back the tears, still trying to put up the mask, still trying to face the world as stern and commanding as she wanted to be-

“Padmé,” he whispered, “This is terrible. You don’t have to pretend it’s not. You’re not fooling me. You don’t _have_ to.”

She was still fighting the tears back, but in between them, from the wreck of her throat, she whispered, “If I don’t, it won’t stop.”

He sat on the bed and held her. She was right. He knew if he let himself feel it – the terror, the loss, the betrayal – he’d curl into a ball and self-destruct. He’d lose himself.

As far as he was concerned, Anakin Skywalker was dead. Whatever he’d become – the beast that called himself Darth, the thing that had somehow survived – was someone, or something, that Obi-Wan had never known.

 

\---

 

_ Then the child moved ten times round the seasons _

_ Skated over ten clear frozen streams  _

_ Words like when you're older must appease him  _

_ And promises of someday make his dreams _

 

\---

 

The loss of her voice had never particularly bothered Padme. What needed to be communicated could be, through datapads and artificial speech; those she was close to picked up her sign language quickly. But now, watching the shards of Alderaan drift across empty space, she could feel a scream sitting just underneath her crushed voicebox.

Leia. Where was Leia?

Obi-Wan wasn’t responding either. She didn’t contact him most of the time – they had their calls once every few months, but more than that risked her exposure. For twenty years she’d been one of the Rebellion’s ghost agents. Legally, she didn’t exist; practically, she was one of the Empire’s most wanted. The threat of death was nothing new to her – and hell, if Anakin had had his way, she would have been dead years ago.

But Leia – Leia was still practically a _child._ Rationally, she knew she was overreacting. It would be death, or worse, to fly towards the Death Star and search in vain hope. At least she knew Luke was safe on Tattooine.

She exhaled, trying to catch her breath, and reached up to wipe the sweat from her forehead. She was crying, she realized, and she wiped those tears away, too. Her daughter had been – _was, dammit, was –_ a leader, a princess in her own right. There was no point in panicking.

Of course, what kind of mother would she be if she didn’t – just a bit? She turned her craft towards the closest rebel base, knowing it would break her cover, but knowing just as well that it was better than finding Anakin and tearing him to pieces. (Even if she really, _really_ wanted to.)

\---

 

_ Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now  _

_ Cartwheels turn to car wheels thru the town  _

_ And they tell him take your time it won't be long now _

_ Till you drag your feet to slow the circles down  _

 

\---

Hours passed. Admiral Ackbar handed her a coffee. Another hour.

There was still no news upon the total casualties of Alderaan.

Padme tried to breathe, to stabilize the chaos in her chest. _You should have protected her, you should have kept her with you, you should have been a better mother –_

The thoughts turned elsewhere. _I need to be sure Luke is on Tattooine I need to be sure he’s safe but I can’t leave just in case JUST IN CASE-_

The door opened with a clatter, and Padme almost dropped the cup, realizing she’d left fingernail imprints in the leather palms of her gloves. “Ma’am,” Ackbar said with an incline of his head, “we have visitors.”

Padme pulled up her hood, goggles still hanging around her neck, and ventured outside with her heart in her throat.

Possibly the most decrepit ship she’d ever seen sat at the end of the dock, so beaten up that she wondered how pieces weren’t falling off of it. It was a model that’d been discontinued years ago, and she wasn’t sure why they’d even let it in.

Then she saw him, descending from the ship in the same brown robes he’d clung to all these years. A habit for a monk without an order.

Again the voice she’d lost pressed up inside her throat, and she began to run across the room, just so _relieved_ that he was fine.

He glanced up, and burst out in a laugh. “There you are! I-“

She slapped him full across the face, then her fingers began working, half-shaking. <Don’t you EVER! Ever worry me like that again!>

<I’m sorry! We were being sneaky. You know the Empire will track those transmissions given half the chance.>

<I know! But I still thought you were dead! I -> She threw herself into his arms.

“I forgive you for slapping me,” he murmured into her ear, and she could feel the smile. Jerk. If she wasn’t so happy to see him, she would have been furious.

“So, uh, what was that?”

A chill ran down her spine, and for a moment, she thought she’d heard herself. But the voice was all wrong. For one, it was _male._

She turned around, and her hand flew to her mouth. She didn’t completely recognize the boy standing there, awkward as a duck in Stormtrooper armour that didn’t quite fit. But his hair was dusky gold, the way his father’s had been a long time ago, and even the way he was fumbling with the helmet, trying to figure out where to put it –

“Sign language. This is my friend Dala – she doesn’t speak.”

“Oh. Er, can you hear me alright?”

Somebody else finished climbing out of the ship, and punched him on the shoulder. “Mute doesn’t mean deaf, genius.”

Luke rubbed his shoulder ruefully. “It was a fair question!”

Padme tried not to stare. She’d followed the news about her daughter’s exploits from afar, heard soundbytes and read reports – but, mostly for her own sanity, she’d never seen her face. Leia had the same chestnut-brown hair. The same eyes. The same quirk of a smile at the edge of her lips –

“Why are you still even wearing that armour? You look like you’re wearing a barrel.”

“I was cold! And I’m not going to change in _front_ of you.”

“Trust me, you have nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Padme tried not to laugh, and it ended up coming out as a hiccup. Both Luke and Leia turned – _in unison –_ to stare at her, and ask, “What are you looking at?”

_Excuse me,_ she signed, and made herself scarce. She just barely heard Obi-Wan excuse himself as well, and then he was next to her, hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay-“

She bumped her head into his chestbone, helpless giggles pouring out of her mouth. They sounded weird, like any sound she could make, but they happened anyway.

“Are – are you _laughing?_ ”

<Do they _know?_ >

<Know what?>

<About each other?>

Obi-Wan got a sheepish look on his face. “Ah. Well. Fate works in mysterious ways-“

<Wait. How did my boy get mixed up in this?> She jabbed her finger in his face. <He was _safe_ on _Tattooine!_ >

<Hey, that wasn’t me. Blame C-3PO.>

<I can, and I will.> She started rolling up her sleeves, then sighed, the frustration still there but giving way to a different emotion. <…They really haven’t figured it out.>

<No, and it’s probably safer if they don’t for now.>

She could see the hesitation in his eyes as well, the secret weighing down on his shoulders. The war had made him old, and she wondered if he’d seen Anakin, or whatever monster he’d become. She didn’t ask, because she didn’t want to know.

<Are they… What are they like?>

“They’re good kids,” he said, a soft smile lingering on his lips. “Luke’s a bit scrappy. And Leia is a class-A personality like you wouldn’t believe.” He began to walk her back to the barracks, his hand sliding discreetly down into hers. It was a risk, even on a rebel base, but she wasn’t going to tell him no. “I think she gets that from you.”

She stuck out her tongue at him.

“Hey, don’t give me that. I _know_ you. You don’t get elected a princess at fourteen without being a control freak.”

<Details,> she signed roughly with one hand. She could have taken her hand back, but why bother?

She considered asking him if – had things been different, had they known how everything would turn out – if he would have chosen to be their father. But she saw the look of pride on his face as he talked about Luke and the force, and the way Leia had gotten the messages to him, and she decided she could draw her own conclusions.

 

\---

_ So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty  _

_ Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true _

_ There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty _

_ Before the last revolving year is through _

\---

 

Jakku was, Obi-Wan thought, almost more desolate than Tattooine, and that really took some doing. It was a good thing he’d adjusted to living in the desert a long time ago, but he couldn’t help but wonder if there’d be any point in his life where he wasn’t picking sand out of his unmentionables.

<It could be worse,> laughed Padme when he pointed it out. <It’s smaller, so you can’t exactly get lost.>

<Oh, great. So it’s not just a backwater desert planet, it’s a dull backwater desert planet.>

<Have I ever mentioned how cute you are when you complain?>

<No-> Obi-Wan lowered his hands and narrowed his eyes at her. “…Fair point.”

Obi-Wan set down his pack, getting ready to put together a tent, when he heard a commotion a little ways away. He stood up and looked over. One of the Jakku scrap merchants had a little girl by the arm, and she was struggling against him, reaching up to the sky.

He looked up. The transport was long gone, barely a speck against the horizon, and he could put two and two together easily enough. He blew his breath out through his teeth. “Poor girl. Is this really where we’re setting up our retirement?” There was no response, and he turned around. “Padme?”

Her eyes were fixed on the little girl, jaw set in determination.

“It’s…it’s a bad idea, Padme. We’re trying to blend in.”

<The war’s over, at least for now. And she’s all alone.>

Obi-Wan didn’t have a good answer. Instead, he looked over at the girl again. Even from here, he could feel the midichlorians massing in her blood, Force-sensitivity rearing its head even before she could muster the strength of will to direct it.

Padme tapped on his arm. <Would you have helped rescue him? If you’d known what would happen?> she asked, and for a moment, her face was as open as a wound, every bit of vulnerability and sorrow she’d felt for forty years laid plain.

_No,_ Obi-Wan thought. But he couldn’t make himself believe it. He and Qui-Gon had seen a child enslaved with no future, no prospects, and known he deserved better. Even without the Force-sensitivity, even without the power lurking behind his eyes.

He’d never know what went wrong. Whether it had been something Qui-Gon had done, or something he’d said, or some unspoken rift between Anakin and Padme. Whether Anakin had just been _wrong_ from the start.

But Padme was right.

“Alright.” Obi-Wan was about to move across the sand, but Padme was faster than him. Ten years’ difference in age hadn’t seemed like so long before, but now he _really_ was slowing down; she whipped across the sand and pole-axed the big thug right between the eyes.

Obi-Wan watched, and thought, and when Padme came back with a tear-stained girl holding her hand, he knelt down. “Hey there.”

“I want my mom and dad,” she burst out.

“I know. But we’ll protect you until they come back, okay?”

Padme pulled a face at him, and he signed, <She’s five! I can tell her uncomfortable truths later.>

Padme stroked the girl’s hair. <Ask her what her name is?>

“My wife wants to know what your name is.”

She sniffled. “Rey.”

“Well, Rey, I’m Ben. And this is Dala.” Obi-Wan stood up, and took Rey’s other hand. “And you are going to be just fine.”

 

\---

 

_ And the seasons they go round and round  _

_ And the painted ponies go up and down  _

_ We're captive on the carousel of time  _

_ We can't return we can only look  _

_ Behind from where we came  _

_ And go round and round and round  _

_ In the circle game. _

 

_ (We go round and round and round _ _   
_ _ In the circle game.) _

  
  



End file.
